Oh dear god I wish I´d flushed first!!!

Man I was grumpy this morning! A 4am rise after the new idiot in the dorm room decided to read and scratch until 2am, felt like I hadn´t slept at all. Not digging dormville at all! I did get my own back though a few hours later after he finished by turning on my bedside light and pointing it directly at him! Inconsiderate dumbass. Lol.

I´d planned well (of course) and was fully packed and prepared for the 18-20hour bus ride to El Calafate from Ushuaia. A very, very cold walk to the bus area and I was ready to rock. After meeting a chatty Aussie at the bus area, I somehow found myself isolated by two Italiens who didn´t speak any English. Of course, I don´t speak Spanish really and so it proved to be quite an interesting ´conversation´. It appeared that we were going to see a beautiful sunrise as we left Ush if the big ball of fire was able to break through the cloud. Fatigued for sure, I thought about sleeping! Ignore the blatant security risks Terry...just ignore them.

Two minutes into the journey and I realised that sleep was the last thing on my mind due to the fact that we were driving through an amazing valley squashed inbetween steep, steep jagged edged snowy mountains. Every peak felt like it was a stones throw away and I imagined climbing each one of them for a second. Why doesn´t every human being fall in love with these works of art by Mother Nature?? I pretend to myslef for a minute that I knew what I was talking about and was convinced that I knew the best and safest route up one particular gigantic slope. Lol.

The rest of the landscape was flat and visibly sodden with ice melt. We even passed under a ski lift spanning the road taht I´m sure went up to an incredible piste. Blogging, I´ve decided is healthy for the lone traveller. I´m convinced it helps keep the person travelling by themselves company as it allows them to maintain an internal monologue thus giving them somebody to talk to.

I also decided at that point that I´m disgusting as I realised I´d been wearing the same stinking trousers for the last 3 days!! Gross!!

As we climb higher into and through the valley, snow started to appear on the ground all around us. Waterfalls also dotted the seemingly converging off ramps from the peaks. I guessed the water would be safe to drink due to it being snow/glacier melt but still wouldn´t like to try it unless I absolutely had to, like Bear Grylls did (or didn´t) when he was in the Patagonian region. Even though I´d be absolutely freezing, somehow I´d still love to be out there trekking in the snow.

I turned from gazing out of the window, jaw ajar, bit into an apple and tried to imagine how different it would be if I were in the UK at that moment. After discovering the apple I picked out of the ´freebie´cupboard back in the hostel was bruised and old all the way through, I then randomly caught a glimpse of what appeared to be a London Underground ticket on the floor of the bus. Good timing based on my ´train of thought´ (no pun intended).

Three hours later and I was rudely awoken from my partial snooze to swap buses in Rio Grande. One slight problem prevented me from doing so however...my name wasn´t on the new list! A ticket screw up in the office back in Ush meant that I had to queue up at an office and somehow tell them in order to get a new ticket issued! ´Nombre es no lista´ is what I said and it worked! With the seat next to me still free and a ´Stayling Alive/Rock Your Body´ remix playing through the sound system, I was heading towards my first border crossing EVER without the help of my gorgeous girlfriend. J La, where are you at a time like this??

One exit down, two entrances and one more exit to go. I reaslied at that point that we´d be leaving Argy, entering Chile, then leaving Chile back for Argy in the course of a few hours! Crikey! One guy had it right though, he had a green bomber jacket with heaps of zip pockets for all his stuff! Although, he did also appear to be donning a crazy, 80´s style wig...so maybe he didn´t get everything right eh!

The ´buff´is by far the second best invention in the world behind marmite only!

Once we crossed into Chile, the landscape changed dramatically from steep and spikey to wide and flat. There were grasslands as far as they eye could see with sporadic patches of sheep. I knew that there were more changes in store today as we were heading back to Argentina. Eventually I would arrive in El Calafate which at that moment in time seemed like a lifetime away!

It was 1pm and I´d been on the bus for 8hours already. There was an old woman knitting across the row from me and llamas kept appearing out the window every so often. Despite the interesting scenery, I needed to get off the bus big time!!!

At around 1.30, to my surprise, we arrived at a ferry point. I discovered at that very moment that Ush was technically an island and that we needed to cross to get back to ´the mainland´. I´d arrived by plane and so didn´t know! The turbulent ferry ride only lasted 15mins. I decided to site for a while toward the end of the journey so as to grammar check my new blog entry when I needed to go for a number one. Stupidly, I kept the pad under my left arm and proceede to flush the chain when I dropped the damn thing into the ´soiled´bowl!!!!

I´m not kidding, the thing was dripping wet with my own urine!! I clearly spent too long trying to mop it up as when I emerged, the bus was leaving the ferry withouth me!! I had to run to get back on!! Not cool.

Another two border crossings and we arrived at Rio Gallegos to changes buses once more for El Calafate. Inbetween the bus changed I played an hour of Yahtzee with John, the Aussie I´d met in the morning. We planned to meet up and possibly do some trekking together. The ´W´trek was discussed, details exchanged and I boarded the minibus for a further 4hour journey to El Cal.

Along the way I got to know two German lesbians who´d been living in Ireland and were equally disillusioned with Western living. We all reached the conclusion that I probably wouldn´t have time to do the 4 day ´W´trek and see the Moreno Glacier and go to El Chalten/Fitzroy Range by Dec 7th ready for my flight back to BA. Time to make a hard decision.

Miss Edmonds...where are you in these crucial times....??